Friday, 18 January 2013

Shell Classic International 2013/14 season

The details of the Shell Classic International season at the South Bank Centre for 2013/14 have been released. Its not really a vintage season, but there are one or two gems. Claudio Abbado and Diego Matheuz (a graduate of El Sistema) conduct the Bologna based Orchestra Mozart. Marin Alsop conducts Swingle Singers and the Sao Paolo Symphony Orchestra in Berio's Sinfonia. Michael Tilson Thomas performs Ives, Berlioz and Mahler with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. Antonio Pappano conducts the Academia di Santa Cecilia in two concerts. Dallapiccola's Il Prigionero in a combination with excerpts from Beethoven's Fidelio and the final two movements of the Ninth symphony, with soloists including Stuart Skelton; and Verdi's Requiem with soloists including Joseph Calleja. And there is more from El Sistema when Christian Valquez conducts the Teresa Carreno Youth Orchestra of Venezuala, a huge orchestra of 14 to 19 year olds. They will be playing two concerts of orchestral show-pieces by Stravinsky, Berlioz, Strauss, Rimsky Korsakov, De Falla and Tchaikovsky, so expect plenty of fireworks.. Booking opens for members on 21 January and the general public in February. See the Southbank Centre website for further details.

Quickening:

Songs by Robert Hugill to texts by English and Welsh poets now available from Amazon

four delicate, sensitive settings of Ivor Gurney, drawing performances of like quality. - it is Rosalind Ventris’s viola, weaving its way around and between the voice and William Vann’s piano, that is most beguilingGramphone magazine Jan 2018